Comparison

Nullmask vs Other Privacy Solutions

Feature	Tornado Cash	Privacy Pools	Railgun	Nullmask
User interface	Web app	Web app	Railway wallet, terminal	Any wallet
Required backup	Every note	A new seed	A new seed	None
Shielded transfers	No	No	Yes	Yes
Shielded addresses	—	—	New type (0zk)	Standard addresses (0x)
Deposit amounts	Fixed denominations	Fixed minimum	Any	Any
ERC-20 support	Whitelist	Whitelist	Any	Any
Built-in compliance	None	Exclusion proofs, retrospective compliance	PPoI	Permissioned deposits + revocation keys
Deployed	August 2019	March 2025	July 2021	February 2026
Hardware wallet support	No	No	Yes (design limits practical use)	Yes (native)

Detailed Comparison

Tornado Cash

Tornado Cash uses a web app for deposits and withdrawals. For each deposit, the app generates a note plaintext that users must store securely in order to withdraw later. Tornado Cash supports only fixed denominations and does not support shielded transfers between users.

Privacy Pools

Privacy Pools also uses a web app as its front end. Users must generate a new account backed up by a seed phrase. The seed phrase must be re-entered at every visit to the web app. Privacy Pools allows a single deposit to be withdrawn in multiple transactions to different addresses.

As of March 2026, Privacy Pools supports key derivation from a wallet signature, accompanied by a prominent phishing warning disclaimer.

Railgun

Using Railgun requires the installation of a dedicated wallet backed up by a new seed phrase. Railgun users can transact privately among each other using a new address type prefixed with 0zk. Railgun provides a terminal interface and a web app for 0x-to-0zk transfers.

Railgun supports hardware wallets but with a fundamental design flaw: the spending authority must still be extracted from the device, violating the core security principle of hardware wallets.

Nullmask

Nullmask requires no new wallet, no seed phrase, and no backup. Users add a virtual network to their existing wallet and transact as usual. The protocol works with any EIP-1559 compatible wallet including hardware wallets, with spending authority never leaving the device.

Security Architecture Comparison

For a deeper analysis of how Nullmask's architecture compares on hardware wallet support and spending authority, see Hardware Wallets.